South Alabama Forward Javon Franklin Transfers to Georgia Tech

Today former South Alabama and Auburn forward Javon Franklin committed to Georgia Tech. The 6’7 Forward started his collegiate career at Junior College, then spent two years at Auburn, and then last year at South Alabama. His first year at Auburn he barely played. His second year at Auburn he played a little more, but was clearly an end of bench player.

When he transferred to South Alabama he got a chance to play and made it worth it for the Jaguars. I will caveat this section by saying I have not seen him play much. I am basing this off of stats and people I trust have said about his game. He played mostly center and power forward last year and is clearly an interior player. He averaged a solid 12.2 points per game and 7.8 total rebounds. He was extremely efficient shooting 65% from the field and was very good at drawing fouls. He was also excellent at grabbing offensive rebounds. Defensively he put up solid stats at blocking shots and rebounding.

The question mark is his fit at Georgia Tech and in the ACC. Josh Pastner has mostly preferred to play one interior player at a time and 6’7 seems too short to play center in the ACC unless Franklin is remarkably crafty. I haven’t seen him enough to say how he’d translate. With the right personnel Pastner might be open to playing two big men at once (like Rodney Howard and Javon Franklin). Either way, this frontcourt was looking very thin before this commitment. There is plenty of playing time up for grabs and Franklin was solid enough in the Sun Belt that I’m confident he will be able to contribute to this team. This isn’t a game-changing transfer, but he will make the team better.